None the
less it is the Alto Hautboy. The tenor and bass of the family have not
survived. Hautboys in four parts were the backbone of the French
regimental bands in Lully's time--_i.e._, about 1670. [Appendix.]
The spelling of the word in the old editions of Shakespeare is
'hoeboy,' which is very like the modern German Hoboe.
_Sennet._ This is a rare direction, and is found only nine times in
eight plays, as against sixty-eight 'Flourishes' and fifty-one
'Trumpets.' The notes of a sennet are unknown. Three times it marks
the entrance or exit of a Parliament, three times is used in a Royal
or quasi-royal procession, and the remaining cases are royal, or near
it.
In the 1st Folio of Hen. V., the word is spelt _senet_, but in later
ones, _Sonet_, as if the former were a misprint. In Marlowe's Faustus
(published 1604), Act iii. sc. i., we find '_sound a sonnet_' [enter
Pope, Cardinal, etc.]. Also the French Cavalry of 1636 used trumpet
calls named _Sonneries_. These seem to point to a derivation of the
word from _sonare_, and thus the spelling ought to be _sonnet_, not
_sennet_.
But other forms are found--Synnet, Signet, Signate, which may be
proper derivatives of _signum_, and thus make this trumpet call 'a
signal,' instead of 'a sounding'; or (which is as likely) may be
corruptions, perhaps of the somewhat featureless form 'Synnet,' caused
by a misunderstanding of the original misspelling 'senet.
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